Rian Johnson Has a Hilarious Rebuttal to Star Wars Fans Who Nitpick ‘The Last Jedi’

Perhaps you have heard that Star Wars: The Last Jedi has proven unpopular with a small but vocal segment of Star Wars fans. Or, perhaps, you’ve been living in isolation on a remote planet that’s home to the last Jedi temple, where you can receive no communications with the outside galaxy. It’s got to be one or the other at this point.

Some fans claim the movie is “Not My Star Wars” and have objected in particular to the film’s depiction of Luke Skywalker as a man who has made mistakes and ultimately chooses the path of a brave sacrifice to help his friends and inspire the galaxy to rise up against the First Order. There’s been a significant kerfuffle about Luke’s return to the Resistance in The Last Jedi’s final act, which is (again, SPOILERS) ultimately revealed as an elaborate ruse. He shows up inside the Rebels’ new base, talks to his sister Leia, fights Kylo Ren, but eventually it turns out he was never actually there; he simply projected an image of himself across the galaxy using the Force.

We’ve seen Jedis as ghosts before, and the powers of Force are nebulous and ever-evolving. Nonetheless, some viewers did not care for this reveal because it seemed to them like a cheat, and also because they’re Star Wars fans and there’s nothing Star Wars fans like more than complaining about Star Wars. Today on Twitter, The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, who really has been rather civil about the social media reaction his film has received, posted a thread defending Luke’s actions (and his choices as a screenwriter) as entirely canonical, by showing the relevant passage of the book Star Wars: The Jedi Path that details this so-called “doppelganger” power:

So there you go: It was all there in the book. Reading is important, guys. (If you want to buy this thing, and figure out what new Force powers will show up in Episode IX, you can find it here.)